Defending the Truth

If you were the leader of a country, wouldn't you suppress any rebels inside your border? It's only natural to expect the PRC to do this. If self-preservation is evil, then I need to rethink my life. And the protests are violent, they've started fires and such, and it is spreading throughout western China.

Oh my. Thank you for that laugh.

Anyone who's been alive for twenty seconds can see that our economies are interdependent. You remove the US, all the workers in China have no one paying them and no pay, so thier economy falls apart. Remove China, we don't get basic goods to continue to survive. Even ignoring that argument, the companies with factories in China stop making things, so they have nothing to sell. The company falls apart, investors loose money, and the stock exchange collapses.

It's like saying that 9/11 hasn't changed our perception of the world. It's stupid, to put it bluntly.

China is the key to the world economy, it produces the goods for the US, the economic, social, cultural, and military powerhouse of the world. Sure they're doing evil stuff, but if we act on it, we all run out of money.

Winner for fastest comparison to Nazi Germany to make a post look bad!

You can just take a situation and transplant it to another, to make it accurate you'd need to increase the size of Nazi Germany to a population of nearly a billion and a half, give it natural resources galore, and have most of the people be extremely poor. France would have to be a minor power with virtually no resources or population. And the economic benefit would far outweigh anything they did to the Jews, Gypsies, or gays. I personally don't like it, but if you think morality is the guiding light of the politics of any nation of any time, then you need psychiatric care.

Not to mention the fact that the Tibetan Empire brutally conquered the mouth of the Ganges, killing hundreds of thousands of people.

These days I was thinking how to make a unbiased and just reply to you, and I was debating with myself on what you said and what I used to believe.

Problem is what they've done is far beyond your descrption。 Aside from that, hey killed ordinary people, they beated and teased young ladies on the road, they burnt school buildings, there are enough reports and videos to prove that; I've also heard that they cutted the flesh of hurted policeman, as for this , I don't know it's true or not.

So anything to do with communist government or a capitalist one? There is a probability that my government tried not showing complete truth to the people. However if the U.S has a population of more than 1 billion you would think it a second time to tell the whole story or not, esp. with the majority of the people very-poor-educated and illiterate, who are easy to be charmed and taken advantage of by domestic and external evil forces.

Does the case you mentioned perfectly match with the Tibetan one? I say no. Since 13th Century(Yuan Dynasty) Tibet is undoubtedly and officially one part of Chinese territory. "Thanks to" the separatists and external "capitalist forces" there, Chinese territorial integration was severly threatened. In the Chinese civil war period, less attention has been paid to Tibet issue thus the local situation worsened. Then, in the 1950s, Chairman Mao and his army liberated Tibet, on a peaceful and democrate basis. Personally, it's the religion and ethnic minority that add far more complexity to the Tibet issue. I have to emphasis that my comments last time on modernisation, ethnic policies and people's well-being were based on the fact that Tibet is definately part of China, but not the to say it's the reason that Chinese government can "invade" Tibet, in your preferrence of words.

Actually I'm 21 and I've heard about the political accident but not so-called "Massacre" which reminds me of what the Japanese invaders and soldiers have done in the territory of China, esp. the well-known Nanjing Massacare where I was born. I don't want to avoid the fact that the government tried to brush it off from people's memory, which is a work in vain. I don't know exactly what has happened but I believe there are students that have been killed. It's not just the Chinese government should be blame for, not mentioning the global condition, is your VOA innocent from that? Again, I have reason to believe if the riot and emergency escalated that time without an effective and tough measure to put it down, there would be another 10 years like in the 1966 to 1976.

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Due to my short of vocab and inablity to use accurate words to describe and express, my reply is hard to understand and easy to misunderstand. But I do hope to exchange my views with you, to clearify what my government has not done and what it has been charged innocently, in a way not only away from narrow nationlism that seems quite popular these years in China, but also reasonable and just. I don't fear to debate with you, now that the forum is in the title of "debating politics online", nevertheless, it's important to view China and Chinese government in an unbiased way, that's the only way to make sense. Words like "Communist government" is nothing more than the heritage of a sterotype conception of the Cold War. It's not the type of the goverment that makes a country doomed to be bad or lack of common legitamacy or authority. On the opposite, in fact, it's only when the people don't believe their government that it is losing or has lost it's authority. The people of China uphold, advocate and surpport their "communist" government, and they are able to say it's good or bad, that's enough. On another hand, every nation has it's respective unique way to develop, to democratize. To transplant a democracy mode into another nation can hardly reach success, the situation in the Iraq say it aloud.

To say a few words a little bit away from our topic, many things have two sides of a coin. Like in the U.S, you have rights to buy guns, but innocent people died of gun shots, on campus or in the district. So where's the protection and guard of the victims' rights to survive and to live? In my view, Chinese government puts overwhelming emphases on the rights of people to survive, that's its logic. If those people in Tibet were not shot down(if it's true), more policmen and local people will die from the riot and will have no home to live. Every responsible nation and its government will not let such things happen without doing anything but debating on whether they could shot the killers dead, or not.

I'm looking forward to your reply and further discussion.

So, doing what's right only counts if you can win?

What kind of 'Christian' are you?

Most of that is highly dubious at best. The problem is that the Chinese government didn't allow independent observers and reporters to get the full story, and Chinese media consistently presents a highly biased account when ever anti-government resentment surfaces.

So it's hard to confirm that either way. What we do know is that there was violence. We do know that Tibetans were rioting, and we do know that the Chinese used both non-lethal and lethal force to suppress the protests. Individual accounts, let alone the broad biased generalizations that your media has portrayed and you are presenting here right now, of "Tibetan violence against Han Chinese" is highly dubious and probably taken out of context.

The fact that you have over one billion people in your country is irrelevant. We may have only 300 million in our country, but we have a much smaller law-enforcement and military in comparison (even in per-capita terms). I do not doubt the ability of your services to suppress lawlessness. What I am doubting is the intent.

I think "poor-educated, illiterate....and easy to be charmed and taken advantage of" describes a good chunk of the US population quite well. However, even though we may have a lot of ignorant people in the US electorate, we still value the inalienable rights to political freedom. We may not always have the perfectly-functioning government but at least people aren't being shot down in the streets and at least they can determine their own government and futures. And, sorry, but your government isn't the greatest either; it has some of the highest rates of corruption in the world.

After a long process of trial and error, we've found out that tyranny, not freedom, is the greatest threat to human life. And we've also found out that the best way to avoid tyranny is to keep the right to a healthy exchange of ideas in a freely democratic society. This is something so fundamental to even socialism.

I think the comparison is highly relevant because Tibet was just as different from China as Korea was from Japan (different culture, ethnicity, language, economy, and identity). The Tibetans were their own society since their pre-history, for thousands of years until the Mongolians invaded in 1240. Then of course they were included in the Mongolian Khanate of the Yuan Empire as you cite. Since then they were traded back and forth from different hands to independence to other invaders. But ever since they retained their sense of identity. No where in this process was the Tibetan Chinese; their lands may have been proclaimed by the Chinese Emperors but the Tibetans were always Tibetans, and Sino-Tibetan relations always retained the characteristic of two different entities.

I'm aware that the invasion of Tibet is characterized by your government (media and education institutions) as a "peaceful liberation". But you're going to have to realize that every imperialist government in history has portrayed their latest additions to their Empires under that heading. Why should we consider this any different? You would be right in saying that Tibet was a feudal society. But the invasion was a two-way street mostly going in the negative direction. Let's forget for a moment that a society has to be capitalist before it can become communist. The Tibetans were implementing revolutionary economic and social reforms just prior to the Chinese invasion in 1950. It would probably be accurate to attribute these reformations to Chinese pressure on the Tibetan government. But had the story ended there, then things would be much better off for the average Tibetan (and judging from comments from the Dalai Lama, Tibet would probably be close to a socialist state today) and the Chinese would probably have to be praised. But the reason why that didn't happen, or a number of different things didn't happen that could have (such as the Chinese giving Tibet semi-autonomy), is because the Chinese government wasn't necessarily interested in a Tibetan liberation from feudal society as they were interested in expanding their territory and influence.

When a country wants to expand their territory, influence, and access to resources then they are commonly referred to as an imperialist state. Lenin once characterized imperialism as an extreme stage of capitalism. I don't think this is a far-off characterization on behalf of Lenin, and I don't think it is far from the reality to consider the socio-economic and political structures of China as an extreme form of capitalism. After all, employers in China have more freedoms to exploit their workers than in even the United States. By all rights, the United States is closer to socialism than China is, on the mere virtue that workers rights are of a better standard here. And for Tibetans, the issue of exploitation is even more relevant.

Instead of simplistically characterizing the Tibetan uprising as capitalistic and evil separatism, perhaps you should understand the true roots of Tibetan indignation. Tibet, in addition to modernization, has seen an influx of Chinese businesses. The state sector which hires from the skilled pool of potential Chinese workers accounts for nearly 94% of employment in Tibet, thus excluding Tibetan unemployed and migrant workers from villages from accessing these jobs. The good-paying state employment opportunities in Tibet are disproportionately offered to ethnic Chinese. And the ethnic Chinese who work in Tibet are compensated well for being far from their homes and the risk of high-altitude sickness; a compensation that Tibetans see as a deliberate attempt by the Chinese to make an ethnically-based privileged class. All of those things aside from the obvious sense of national identity contribute to the indignation of the Tibetans.

The "peaceful liberation of Tibet" was neither peaceful because of the violence on Tibetans at the time of invasion, nor was it a liberation because instead of implementing a socialist policy of liberation, they're merely exploiting Tibet. A true socialist state would throw off the feudal lords and implement a democratically planned economy, however, it is an imperialist state that invades a country merely to expand and open markets. And the latter is exactly what China is doing. Perhaps if China had really decided to implement true socialist policies, and perhaps if they had rewarded the Tibetans their sense of nationality with an invitation to a kind-of Chinese socialist 'union' (like the Russians did for some states in the Soviet Union) or at least semi-autonomy then perhaps the Tibetans would have welcomed a Chinese "liberation", and perhaps the designation of "peaceful liberation" would have been more appropriate.

I know if they had done those things then we would not be having this discussion. I know this because I myself am a socialist. I want to see feudal and capitalist societies become socialist. I would like to see Tibet socialist just as I would like to see China socialist. You're absolutely right that the "majority of the people are very-poor-educated and illiterate, who are easy to be charmed and taken advantage of by domestic and external evil forces". Ever since Mao, your government has known this and taken advantage of this. This is why state-run media in China lie to your people. This is why they exploit the indignation of a powerful albeit ignorant proletariat class by claiming communist revolution while at the same time exploiting the worker and expanding capitalist markets.

I see the Tibetan uprising as a legitimate uprising of an indignant working class against capitalist and politically tyrannical forces. That is why, as a socialist, I support the Tibetan cause. However, if you ask me about Taiwanese pushes for independence, I have a much different opinion. Not all pushes for independence as synonymous to "evil separatism".

Well, perhaps I can bring you to speed. The Tiananmen Square protests I am referring to happened in 1989. The protests started out as a peaceful demonstration by labor activists against the privatization and capitalist reformations in China in the 80's as well as political tyranny. The Chinese military responded with violence, shooting down peaceful demonstrators. The protest didn't immediately halt, but protesters kept returning to the scene a number of times, resulting in more deaths until they decided to halt. The reason why it is so well known in the west because it was well documented by western news agencies, unlike the events happening now in Tibet where news agencies have been blocked.

I believe that most of the demonstrators didn't die from the clashes at the demonstrations but from the military crackdown afterward. Estimates of civilian deaths range up to 3,000 people by Chinese student associations and the Chinese red cross.

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Now regarding some of your other comments,

So far it seems your English is really good; much better than some other non-native English speakers we've had on this forum before (including a gentleman from Taiwan, which I think a debate between him and yourself would have been very entertaining ).

I agree that just saying "communist this country" or "capitalist this country" is not sufficient. There are many bad "Communist" countries, while there are probably even more very bad "capitalist" countries. I consider myself a socialist, and the reason for my quotation marks around "communist" when saying "Communist China" is to emphasize sarcasm. I do not think China is communist in the least bit, nor do I believe that the "Chinese Communist Party" represents communism or the interests of the average Chinese worker in any form.

I fail to see how shooting peaceful protesters, or even rioters, with lethal force represents an "overwhelming emphasis on the rights of the people to survive." I don't think suppressing political indignation with lethal force on behalf of the military and government is analogous to the adverse effects of a freedom of the people to carry firearms in the United States. The latter is common crime and the former is a consequence of an institutional disrespect for people's rights to live and express themselves.

And anyway, what good is a 'right to life' when one cannot lead their own lives?? It's clear that preservation of the 'greater good' isn't always a proper justification for any means necessary.

And the Chinese, if they want to contain riots, can just do what any civilized government does in those situations; use non-lethal means to quell riots. I hope you realize that shooting Tibetans dead will only deepen their indignation toward Chinese, and riots and protests will happen with more frequency (and probably more violent too). I hope you realize that using lethal force against protests will only isolate the Chinese from the rest of the world, and help so-called "separatist" causes.